There are lots of these types of sites on the internet and most of them are kinda crappy. This one is pretty nifty w w w dot weeblydotcom....it is free - but being free at the bottom of your web page it will say "create a free website with weebly." That's it....I've seen worse when going with the free option. If you want to remove the fairly innocuous line at the bottom it will cost you $4 a month. It's a fairly easy process consisting of mainly dragging and dropping different items on your pages....you can make up to 5 pages I think. There are different themed pages you can start with and of course as always with the choices, you always want more to choose from. You can have a contact page and even add video for no extra charge. Thought I'd share this in case someone is looking for a simple way to get a website up and running.

Last night I started a thread about a free website builder just to let people know it's there and not a bad option for folks looking to get a site up and running...I see it's been deleted and I'm not sure why? I apologize if I violated the TOS. Please understand, the website building site is not my businesses...I merely built my hotdog site using it...any feedback mods?

Ha....looks good jcheese. Maybe my mistake was that I put the website builders url and not my own? I'll try that...mine is also a work in progress but check it out. And before anyone says anything...YES, I KNOW THE HOT DOG PICS DON'T MATCH UP WITH THE DESCRIPTIONS. I just wanted to get a pic in there to see the layout.

I love most anything with cream cheese, but never tried it on a dog. How do you prepare it? Do you thin it out, or use the "soft spread" type? Or just slice it and put chunks on? Also love roasted garlic.....gonna try that RG and CC. If it works I'm gonna plant a bunch more garlic.

Most places here will spread the CC on the bun before inserting the dog. Some guys use the whipped version and I have one buddy that puts it in a cake/frosting gun and squirts it out that way...with the grilled onions they are delicious!

The thread title you chose is similar to one many use when posting spam. I think you were just trying to inform others and not push a product, so I have restored this post, which had been deleted as spam.

Thanks Tony....I appreciate it. Yes, I can totally see how it might've been seen as spam at first look...but thank you! I thought this might be helpful for others trying to get something up and going for next to nothing.

I think the best way to go is wordpress. get the dowloadable version from wordpress.org not the free hosted one at wordpress.com once you get ovet the learning curve and install onto your host you can do many things with it. There are tools to connect to all your social sites i.e twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc.

Once you add your different free tools all you have to do is post a article to Wordpress and it automatically posts to Facebook, linkedin, and whatever other social media sites you have tools for. It also has a twitter tool so when you post it automatically tweets that you have posted to your blog.

You can also get Hootsuite it is an interface so you can post to all your blogs and social sites in one place

To a certain extent, you get what you pay for. If you just want to advertise your site, then free sites such as Google Sites is fine. If you are willing to pay for a site, Wordpress is a good choice if you want to put up a food blog (although if you want people with mobile devices to see your site, it is very difficult to make or even find a decent template for them). Joomla and Drupal are also excellent and more flexible frameworks. In all 3 cases, it's easy enough to get beginning guides out of most public library systems (such as the "For Dummies" series). If you are a programmer (or have one), Zikula is a very powerful although poorly documented framework, but it is much easier to write powerful integrated programs for it than most other systems. Probably not a good idea for a food site, though.

Over the years, I"ve been tempted to write a menu module for these frameworks (called CMS's, for Content Management Systems), to make it easy to create full menus, add current specials (or schedule them in advance), etc. Who knows; I still might. Or somebody else probably will (if I did it, it would be released as GPL'd freeware).

Although I believe every business should have a Web Site, I don't think a cart needs much. Just something to say who you are, what you sell, and where you are. FB and Twit can do most of that. Of course, if yer creative and like to play around with stuff like that....go at it.

Exactly jcheese...this is why I'm not interested in wordpress, etc. the free site I'm using does everything I want it to. Those that are interested it also allows you to do a blog...I'm really not sure what else people would want...I thought it was perfect for hot dog guys so that's why I suggested it...it even looks great on my mobile phone. Has anyone even bothered to check out my site or the site builder in general? If I can drag and drop and build a site and a person couldn't tell one difference between mine and someone that built their own site from scratch why should I pay all that extra money, take all the extra time...etc? Yes, you can make it more unique if you build your own....

jcheese

Although I believe every business should have a Web Site, I don't think a cart needs much. Just something to say who you are, what you sell, and where you are. FB and Twit can do most of that. Of course, if yer creative and like to play around with stuff like that....go at it.

I'll play devils advocate. So it's presented as a way some of the general public thinks.

When you do something (anything) in business that is a benefit to you...it also leave a somewhat first impression to potential customers. If/when someone either hears about you...or notices before they stop...they often go visit a website. It happens all the time in restaurants. Restaurants are a little different. Sometimes a bigger investment on the line...but still... when someone is driven to go to a site and maybe they are computerish in nature...and it does not work...notice that there may be some flaws...or is even a free site builder...they often start thinking about the food or experience of the visit.

My Grandmother always told me that the front of the house and the front hall are the impressions of what to expect in the rest of the house. You let the grass grow...and clutter the hall...the guests will be doing the glove test.

I just want to mention that a local empanada place (it's a tiny storefront) has found that they get a lot more business from their Facebook page than from their website. Without some basic SEO techniques, you'll have a website that nobody sees (note that just plain good design will get you placed reasonably high on the search engines).

You make sense CC....I think because the little blurb saying that it was free was pretty inconspicuous at the bottom of the page was allowing me to give it a pass...but normally your rules are what I go by....

I think every vendor should have a website and use twitter! You can build quite a following that way. I tweet my location for the day and my fans retweet to there followers, I also promote my daily specials. Put a printable coupon on your site to encourage visits to your website. You can also make a little money publishing ads on your website.

I'm using domainkidotcom. It is a free bulk website builder with free hosting. It has easy customization and easy drag & drop tools and free hosting features. It has Iphone and Android App as well. You can easily create unlimited business websites in minutes on it. I highly recommend it.

Boo, Thanks for the links. I've always thought you had a good website. Not to open old sores, but whats the latest with your enterprise? With cold weather around the corner are you going to re-group come spring or look for new challenges?

For restaurant owners and operators seeking a website that is under their control with no technical knowledge, Restaurantry is a good option. restaurantry dotcomCreate unlimited pages, menus etc for free.